A gasp escaped her, and it became a purr as he closed his hand about the soft flesh of her breast, stroked his thumb over her tight nipple through the thin cloth of her chemise. The sensation was like fire and ice and fireworks exploding in the sky, only the explosion was inside her, inside her blood, an aching need that spread. Heat. Liquid heat.
“Please.” She knew not what she begged for. But he knew.
Reaching down, he closed his fists in her chemise and tore it open, baring her to his gaze, his touch. His features were hard, hungry, and the way he looked at her made an answering hunger rear inside her.
He let his weight down full upon her, wonderfully heavy, holding her and freeing her, the hard ridge of his arousal between her thighs. She had never felt anything more breathtaking, more sensual. Longing burgeoned and swelled, and she cried out as he closed his mouth on her nipple, offering sweet kisses and gentle bites until she was panting and writhing beneath him.
Running her hands along his shoulders and down the hard planes of his chest, she explored the feel of his smooth skin, taut over lean layers of muscle. He was wonderfully masculine, wonderfully appealing.
His mouth moved again to her throat, his hands skimming her waist, and lower, dipping between her thighs to touch her sex. She moaned, lost in sensation.
She had never imagined this. Never. It was like a tempest inside her own body, a magnificent tempest that lured her to fling herself into the storm with untrammeled abandon.
Her body stirred, her hips rolling in a way she did not deliberately intend. But the movement felt so good, so right. She felt as though he led her to a place she had always known and never even thought to look for. Hot and quivering, sensation poured through her. She was alive, so alive.
Between her thighs, his arousal was thick and heavy, pressing against her sex. Again her hips rocked up, and she felt a slick pressure, there, between her folds. She opened to him, sliding her heels along the smooth, soft sheets, shifting to an angle that increased the incredible feelings he stirred.
Cupping her breast, he stroked her and rocked his hips to bring himself tighter against her. There was a tautness, a pressure; then he slid a little inside her, and she gave a shocked cry at the intrusion, the foreign sensation of being stretched and entered.
He held himself back. She could feel that in the leashed tension of his body. A press; a release. Just a little of his erection easing in to fill and stretch. It was alien and frightening and beguiling all at once, and she could not help but catch his rhythm and move with him. Again and again until she was panting, half in apprehension, half in wild abandon.
What a mad slurry of feelings. She wanted him, ached for him, but could not help but be a little afraid of the unknown.
And then it was unknown no longer. He pushed harder, the stretching so powerful and strange, she cried out. A sharp instant of discomfort, a burning, an ache, and then he was inside her, deep inside her.
She lay there panting, a little dismayed.
As though he knew everything she felt, he simply stayed as he was, allowed her to understand the feeling of his body joined with hers, and then he began to move, a shallow thrust, a retreat. He slid his hand down her belly to her soft curls, to a place so sensitive it made her moan, and he caressed her with lazy gentle swirls of his fingers until she gasped and arched up to meet each shallow thrust. Wanting more. Needing more.
With a little cry, she reached down and locked her fingers around his wrist, holding his hand exactly where it was, aching for something she could not name.
Too much. It was all too much. She could not bear it, could not hold fast to the spiraling pieces of herself.
She twined her fingers through his hair, felt him thrust deep and hard, his breath ragged as he turned his face into the crook of her elbow.
Hot and sharp, she felt his bite, there on the soft skin at the inside of her elbow.
“Killian—” She cried out, and tried to make him understand, but it was too late. The sensation of his fingers sliding along her wet sex, and the feel of his erection moving inside her…She was flying apart, a thousand shining bits of her all flying apart.
And he was with her, flying with her, his release coming an instant after her own as he thrust deep one last time, throbbing inside her, spilling himself inside her.
She clung to him, floating, and finally drifting back to herself.
Panting, bewildered, wonderfully replete, she lay there and stared up at the gilded ceiling, one arm draped across Killian’s broad back, the other flung free across the sheets.
He kissed her neck, her cheek, and finally roused himself to lift his weight from her and roll to the side. She missed it immediately. The weight of him. The heat.
She snuggled against him and smiled as he slid his arm about her and drew her close. Slowly, she lifted her lids, and languidly eased her arm across his chest.
Frowning, she stared at the golden expanse of his skin, and it took her a moment to understand what she saw.
Blood. She had left a smear of blood when she moved her arm over his skin.
With a cry, she jerked to a sitting position and stared at the crook of her elbow. Her veins traced blue beneath her skin, and there were two small gashes there and a small smear of her blood.
He had bitten her. Tasted her. The thought was both appalling and fascinating.
Her gaze jerked to his, and she found him watching her, his lips drawn taut, his eyes pinched.
“Killian,” she whispered, a question, a plea.
His gaze never leaving hers, he reached out and traced his index finger across the blood on her arm, then brought it to his mouth and drew it across his lower lip.
On some level, she knew she ought to be repulsed, horrified, but the sight of him—the smear of crimson on his lips, the trace of his tongue as he licked it, the look of pleasure on his face as he tasted her—was incredibly sensual.
She stared at him, thinking she ought to feel disgusted, horrified, afraid. But all she felt was love. Acceptance. Blood held no mysteries or horrors for her. How could it? She had mopped up buckets upon buckets in her time at King’s College, not to mention the years she had worked by her father’s side.
“Have I shocked you beyond bearing?” he asked.
Wetting her lips, she took a second before she answered, and then she offered the truth.
“Shocked me? Yes. I am shocked, but not so much by what you did, as by the way I feel about it.” She paused, and he gave her the moment, gave her time to collect her thoughts. “I am neither horrified nor repulsed, and that is the shocking thing. I found it…” She shook her head, trying to understand her own emotions. “Is blood essential to you? For your survival?”
“Yes. But that was not for survival. I did not feed from you, Sarah. It is a”—he made an absent gesture—“for my kind, it is a form of connection.”
Somehow, she understood that. She had felt connected to him, as though for a single glittering instant, they were one.
“But you do feed?”
“Occasionally.” He made a small smile. “Not often. And the bowls of blood the physicians bleed from their patients ought not go to waste.”
She felt her lips twitch in an answering smile, and she wondered if she ought to be horrified by that. Her father had always deemed the practice of bloodletting to be both dangerous and barbaric. She could hardly fault Killian for putting the folly of others to a beneficial use.
Suddenly, the magnitude of their discourse overwhelmed her, and she fell back on the sheets to stare at the gilded ceiling. “That story in the magazine…You are—”
“Nothing like the monster in the story,” Killian offered. “But, yes, I am a vampire, Sarah.”
He leaned in as though to kiss her, but held himself inches above her, hovering just beyond reach, his gaze locked on hers.
She understood then. The choice was hers. To deny him or to clasp him to her, press her mouth to his, accept him for all he was.
To
accept that he was a vampire.
What did such a thing entail? Did he mean to make her what he was? Was such a thing even possible?
“What we just shared…was it an act of love for you, the taking of my blood?”
His lashes swept down, veiling his thoughts.
“An act of connection,” he reaffirmed, his voice ragged. “I have lived alone for more years than you can imagine. I dare not let myself love.” He looked at her then, his expression so bleak that her heart broke for him. “To love means to lose, Sarah. I cannot. I dare not. ’Tis a path to madness for one such as me.” He made a muted groan. “I think that in the years of emptiness, I have forgotten how to love. But I can keep you safe. I can make you happy. Those things I can offer you.”
Tears welled, and she made no effort to stem their flow, but let them trickle from the corners of her eyes and across her temples.
Then she raised her head and pressed her mouth to his. She could taste the faintly metallic hint of her own blood on his lips, and she could taste his torment and pain.
“Sarah—”
“Shh.” She pressed her fingers against his lips, then kissed him again. “It matters not, Killian. I have enough love for us both. I do. I will share my love with you, and it will be enough. I swear it will be enough.”
With a groan, he took her mouth in a hungry kiss. He made love to her once more, languid caresses and leisurely care, no part of her untouched. No part of her unloved.
But beneath his gentle care, she sensed his demons, tightly leashed. Sensed his pain.
And when they were both sated, the sheets rumpled and mussed, her heart thudding in the aftermath of passion, she stroked his hair and asked, “How long, Killian? How long have you been alone?”
His chest expanded on a deep breath, and she thought he would not answer. There was sadness for her in that, in his refusal to share any part of himself. Then he surprised her, his voice low and deep.
“Long ago, I loved, and it was an indescribable torment to watch each of them age, or sicken and die. I was alone. Ever alone. And in time, I learned not to love, not to care, to stand at a safe distance and watch mortal lives unfold, to extricate myself when it threatened to become apparent that I never grew a day older.” His voice dropped to a rough rasp. “Three hundred years, Sarah. I have been alone for three hundred years.”
The enormity of that slapped her, and she gasped. She could not imagine it, could not think how he had borne it.
“In all that time, you never took a companion, never shared yourself with anyone?”
“Physically, yes. I have taken many lovers. But not a companion. None knew what I am. I have shared my truths, my secrets, with no one…” He paused. “Until you.”
She held herself very still, those words humming through her mind like a symphony. And then she understood that he did love her; he was only not yet ready to know it.
Hours later, Killian sat propped on the pillows, feeding Sarah slices of apple dipped in honey. The sticky liquid clung to her lips, and when he leaned in and kissed her, it clung to his as well. He popped a slice in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed, and Sarah watched him with unabashed curiosity.
“You eat,” she observed.
He laughed. “Yes.”
She laid her palm flat against his chest. “Your heart beats.”
“It does,” he agreed, amused. “Despite the stories and mad suppositions, Sarah, I am not undead. My heart beats. My body craves food. I sleep when I must, usually a handful of hours each week. Blood is only one form of necessary sustenance for me, and I take it as I require, far less often now than in the early years.”
She nodded, and dipped her finger in the honey, then smeared it over his lips. Tipping her head, she kissed him, tasting honey, tasting him.
Then his words triggered a thought, and she drew back to study him. “How often did you require it in the early years?”
“At least once each week. It was like a madness, a thirst that could be assuaged no other way.”
“The killer at King’s College,” she mused. “He takes the lives of those who are dying, those who suffer terrible pain. I think he believes it a mercy. But he does it often. Does that mean he is…new? That these are the early years for him?”
Killian blinked, and sat straight. “A newly made vampire. Yes. That makes sense. And he is making an effort to turn his thirst to the good, to find a way to control it.”
“Did you control it?” she asked, not quite certain that she wanted to know.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, planting his bare feet on the carpet, and he turned his face to her, his expression somber.
“Not at first. At first, I was careless and greedy, drinking where I would. I did not murder indiscriminately, but I cannot swear that none died.” He raked his hand back through his hair, and took a slow breath, as though deliberating how much to reveal. “I would have you know the truth, Sarah, though it paints me in a less than perfect light. I was no monster, but I was no saint. I fed from murderers and thieves, but I was not overly cautious about draining them. I fed, and I left them, and if they died, I neither knew nor cared.”
“But the vampire who hunts at King’s College does know,” she pointed out. “He kills on purpose, and he chooses to drain those who are suffering a horrible death.”
“A strange form of morality.”
“Killian, I think the vampire follows me. I have seen him in the graveyard, sensed his presence behind me in the alleys. He dogs my steps.” She shook her head. “It is the same man, Killian. The man who stalks me is the same as the one who moves like a wraith through the wards, stealing lives.”
Killian studied her for a moment. “He moves about only in the darkness,” he said. “His pattern indicates he is too new to have built up any sort of tolerance of the light.”
“That is why you told me I would be safe in the light. You sensed that my pursuer was a vampire.” And as she thought about it now, she realized it was true. She had never felt the sensation of being watched, being followed, in the daylight. Only in the hours between dusk and dawn. “But you can move about in the light.”
He smiled at her then. “I can move about in the light, if I am careful and my skin covered, but I am centuries older than he.”
Centuries. Her breath locked in her throat. She was not accustomed to that yet. Hundreds of years, alone. She could not imagine it, could not imagine how he had borne it. “What happens if you are exposed to the light?”
“Much the same as what happens if you are exposed for too long. My skin pinkens, then reddens. Blisters form. There is discomfort, then pain. It is not deadly, merely unpleasant. But for a newly born, it is far more than unpleasant. It is an agony that can lead to a debilitating condition that may last for months, even years.”
“Will the light kill him?”
For a moment, she thought he would not answer, would hold fast the secrets she longed now to know. Then he made a huffing exhalation and said, “No, it will not kill him. There is very little now that can kill him.” His lips drew taut, and after a pause he finished softly, “Another vampire could do the deed.”
She shivered, reading his meaning in the things he did not say. “You will kill him, this newly made creature, if he does not agree to cease murdering people.”
“Yes, exactly. Mortals, as a whole, are not ready to know of creatures such as me.” He made a soft sound. “Even small children suspect that monsters exist. But suspicion is far different than certainty. I cannot leave him free to dart about and kill indiscriminately, leaving proof that we exist.”
“But only if you are forced to. You will only kill him if you are forced to.” Her heart pounded in apprehension and horror.
“Yes.”
“Is there danger, Killian? To you?”
“No.” She heard the smile in his voice as he replied. “He is newly made, and I…well, I am not.”
“I can help,” she said, and rushed on as he turned his head
toward her, intending, she was certain, to argue. “He will not know that I no longer work at King’s College. He will expect me to walk home this evening to Coptic Street, and that is exactly what I will do.”
Her heart thudded as she waited for his reply, waited to see if he would recognize the value of her plan.
A slow smile curved his lips, and he curled his fingers round her nape and drew her close for a hard kiss.
“A brilliant plan. You will walk to Coptic Street”—he cast her a sidelong look through his lashes—“and I will follow in your shadow.”
In that moment, she was both pleased that he valued her proposition, that he saw the importance of her participation, and faintly uneasy by the menace she sensed lurking just beneath the surface.
He shifted so his lips moved against her ear as he whispered, “I am what I am, Sarah. No matter how civilized, how controlled the veneer, beneath it all, I am the hunter.”
Seven
That night, Sarah walked slowly past the graveyard, searching for some hint of the man who stalked her. The place was silent and still. No shadow, no sound, no movement. He was not there. She was a little surprised, for she had been so certain he would come. But there was still time. He might yet show himself at any point along the route.
A thick, damp blanket of fog clung to the tombstones and the surrounding buildings. She braved a glance over her shoulder toward the slaughterhouses. The fog veiled them from sight, though she knew they were behind her, for the air was stained with the scent of blood and butchered meat.
Beneath her cloak, she carried her cudgel, and her fingers curled tighter about it now. Killian had grinned when he saw it.
“What will you do with that?” he had asked with a low chuckle.
“I shall cosh him on the head if need be.”
“Yes, I believe you will.” He had caught her to him and kissed her, and held her against his chest, his laughter rumbling through them both.
The sound had poured through her like chocolate, luscious and warm. She made him laugh. She brought him joy. There was such pleasure for her in that.
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